President Bush has spoken ambitiously about a “forward strategy of freedom,” arguing that the United States should support democratic movements wherever they exist, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in the world. But given continuing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan despite elections there, and Hamas’s rise to power in Palestine, there are growing doubts about the effectiveness and advisability of the current U.S. approach to democratization—including from within the administration itself.
How much do we really know about democracy promotion and democratization? What can the United States and other foreign powers do to support the emergence of democratic governance around the world—and what is simply beyond our reach? What are the lessons of past democracy promotion programs and the Bush administration’s own efforts to date? What are we doing right, and what are we doing wrong?
Please join AEI for a symposium to consider these and other questions. Speakers include J. Scott Carpenter, deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs; Gareth Evans, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group and former foreign minister of Australia; William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and Judy Van Rest, executive vice president of the International Republican Institute. AEI’s Mauro De Lorenzo will moderate.
